Page 19 of Henhouse
“Oh bite me, Schilling.”
“Wouldn’t dare,” he countered. Effie smiled at him, grateful for his intervention. Maybe Schillingwasthe reason she came out tonight. It might not have been fate, but it felt like something. “Friday sounds great,” he said, turning his full attention back on Effie. Something like hope bubbled in her chest, and she did her damnedest to keep the door to it open.
Theo hiked the stairs to his one-bedroom apartment in the old mill building right outside of Market Square, a fairly drunk Schilling behind him. After Effie left, claiming she needed to get up early, Talia insisted they do shots.
As Theo unlocked his front door, he was certain Talia had hoped to get him drunk enough to take her home. To her dismay, he led Schilling through the door instead.
They wandered into the modest space and sunk into the old leather sofa that sat opposite the exposed brick wall of his combination kitchen and living area. Theo leaned his head back. Under normal circumstances he would have brought Talia home, shots or not. It had been his intention all night. But when he had the choice to lay with Talia or offer his sofa to his drunk friend, he chose Schilling. He’d likely hear about that when Schilling was sober enough to call him on it. Currently, Schilling stared blankly at the wall, hugging a pillow.
“All set, buddy?” Theo asked.
“Fine. You’re not though.”
Theo scowled. Apparently, sobriety wasn’t a prerequisite for Schilling’s insights.
“You like her,” Schilling said.
“Talia is fun, but we don’t have the same priorities. We’ve been over this.”
“Not her. Eggplant.”
Theo choked on a laugh. That was rich. Schilling had been the one talking Effie up all night, making plans with her. Theo was just trying to make amends for ruining a tote bag. He wasn’t thinking about Effie in any other way. She was merely an annoying client he had to see tomorrow, never mind that she was nicer to look at than most. And if him flirting with Talia bothered her, then she could have declined his offer. “Yeah, right,” Theo rebuffed. “She’s barely tolerable.”
Schilling raised his hands in defense. “Seems like it bugged you when I asked for her help.”
“If anything, it made me question your sanity.”
“Ouch,” Schilling muttered before letting out a yawn.
Theo rose, giving Schilling the rest of the couch. Poor guy couldn’t hold his liquor, but people seemed to be drawn to him for it. His personality wasn’t born on the bravery of booze but rather in the authenticity of his character. He patted Schilling on the shoulder as he went by, muttering, “Sleep it off.”
Schilling laid down and Theo shuffled into his own room. He pulled off his shirt and pants, climbing under his comforter in just his boxers. He settled in to sleep, all the while insisting to himself that he’d take Talia home next time, and that her not warming his bed tonight had absolutely nothing to do with Effie Thatcher.
11
Hope dozed against her mountain of pillows. Her room was shrouded in hues of violet as sunlight filtered through the curtains she had drawn. She didn’t want Brayden trying to come in through the window. Not again. His incessant text messages were bad enough. Apparently, he’d never been ghosted before because he didn’t let up. Well, lucky him.She prayed it hurt.
Hope rolled onto her side to confront her open laptop. She moved the mouse, bringing the screen to life on the email she left up.
Hope!
Love the revisions; everything is coming together in this last installment ofWeb of Realms. The publishers are a bit surprised by the ending, though, and so am I. You may weave some sordid tales, but you always wind up at a happy ending. We were rooting for Kiernan and Dominique. Ithink your readership would want it too. Try it out and send me an alt ending by next Friday.
Talk soon,
Heather
Hope thought they’d end up together too. Maybe she could get away with telling her agent that sometimes the characters do what the characters want to do, and it’s out of her hands. Pull from any number of authors who have admitted the same in interviews about different pairings or killings or seismic shifts in the plot that readers didn’t see coming. It would work for Hope too,if, in fact, it were true. But Kiernan and Dom wanted to end up together. They needed it. It was written, well before she’d ever introduced them on the page, like they’d been drawn from her brain to find each other amidst the fictional realms that worshipped a spider goddess and were crumbling into the abyss. She just hadn’t been able to write that ending. Hadn’t wanted them to have what she couldn’t.
Heather was being nice, as always. Not outright demanding the alternate ending but rather insisting Hope play. She knew Hope responded better to suggestions than demands, but it was clear. She’d need the happy ending to get approval from the team that made her first two books bestsellers. What was worse was she knew they were right. It had been agonizing to write the ending without bringing those two characters together. It had felt all wrong. But her wounds were too fresh when the deadline for the last three chapters had rolled around, and she couldn’t bear it. She’d knocked them out in an afternoon after the whole Chloe debacle, just wanting it to be over.
Hope groaned as she drew the computer into her lap. She opened a new document, gearing up to try the romantic ending she’d been avoiding. It was an epic fantasy series after all. The romance was a subplot that she introduced in book two. It was supposed to add some levity and warmth to the otherwise dark and twisted nature of the horrors she’d fictionalized about a world falling into chaos as it disintegrated into the voids between stars. But she knew, given the outpouring of love for the characters after the second book released, that she had to find a way to save them and give them their happy ending. It was exciting when she started writing it six months ago. It felt right.
Now, it was torture.
Hope stared at the cursor blinking on the blank page. The words got stuck somewhere in the mechanism of her mind. The pressure built behind her ears. They screamed to be written to be expressed, but she’d tucked them away. Back to the cell they’d been kept locked in before she met Brayden. Where she and Effie had stuffed excitement and lust and love and waited until they could be shared safely.
A rap on the glass of her window startled her. Hope sucked in a breath, holding it tensely as though he could possibly hear her breathing within.
